Best thing about home-made milk tea is not paying thru the nose 🤑 for extra sago pearls, get to choose you favorite tea.
For years, I always tell myself that I should get a metal straw for that sensory pleasure of sucking the sago pearls -- but never got around to doing it. 😆
I over-cooked this sago batch, so it's not as chewy as it should be. No "qq" this time, because I'm trying a new brand. 😬 The next batch ought to be better.
Trending in the #Philippines : Most confusing mall.
a. SM North / SM West
b. Trinoma
c. Alabang Town Center (a.k.a. ATC)
d. Glorietta
e. Robinson's Galleria (a.k.a. Galle)
f. Robinson's Place Manila/Ermita
Within my own circles, we agree that the most confusing are Trinoma > ATC > Robinson's Galleria > Robinson's Place Manila, in that order.
SM Malls, at least those they designed directly (not bought), are mostly generic. (Note: SM Mall of Asia, still the largest mall in the Philippines & 6th in the world, is currently confusing because of the major on-going overhaul.)
Ironically, Ayala-owned malls are generally confusing, with the exception of Glorietta (the layout is like a spiderweb). Trinoma and ATC are both Ayala-owned.
How about you? What do you think is the most confusing mall(s) for you?
@youronlyone@pilipinas@philippines@pinoy@pinoy I don't find ATC confusing, but that's probably because I grew up visiting it often. I personally find SM North the most confusing because of "The Annex" and "The Block"
They ask verification questions guaranteed to fail.
Their agents are heartless and rude.
They are above the Law of the land.
They don't care about their customers.
Here are the verification questions they asked me:
> 1. Can you provide the exact date when your SIM was activated? Ex. March 2023.
>
> 2. What’s the last promo that you purchased before your phone was lost? When did you register it?
>
> 3. What was your remaining load balance before your phone was lost?
All three verification questions are guaranteed to fail.
#1: Can you honestly remember the exact date when your SIM was activated, especially if it has been with you for at least a decade?
#2: Can you honestly remember the last promo you purchased when you did not purchase any promo for the last 5 years?
For the third question, I provided the CORRECT answer, and I even submitted a screenshot taken on April 12th, very recent.
And yet, Globe Telecom Inc.'s agent replied with the following:
> We have to follow the process before we proceed with the deactivation.
> Unfortunately the details you have provided, do not match our record.
> Yes, the details you have provided do not match our records.
> We can only block the number if you were able to provide the correct details we need.
After this, their agent copy-pasted their spiel in a rush to close the chat conversation.
I've worked in the customer service field for 20 years, and I can tell you this is the worst agent and the worst process I've seen and experienced.
Verification questions guaranteed to fail.
Not exploring other avenues of verifications, that actually are logical to ask.
Totally heartless and rude.
A company process. In other words, this is how they were trained.
End the chat conversation as fast as you can.
To the agent, “I deeply apologise for disturbing your sleep and giving you some work to do.”
To Globe Telecom Inc., “Shame on you for having such a process, and yet you continue to claim awards for having the best service.”
It's easier to use Hangeul and Kana to write pronunciations of Filipino words, than to use Filipino diacritical marks.
Last we were taught about Filipino diacritical marks was in Grade 4 or 5 (early 90s). I don't know why, but after that diacritical marks were totally forgotten.
Tracking it down, IIRC, it was late 90s / early 00s when it was officially removed by the KWF.
Sometime 2010, the KWF brought diacritical marks back, though limited.
In 2014 (or was it 2016?) the KWF introduced a new diacritical mark, the Filipino schwa. It didn't exist before. There are only like 4 Philippine languages with a schwa vowel. They added it in Filipino so words from those Philippine languages can be integrated into the Filipino language.
Here's my problem, no matter how many times I read the KWF document on Filipino diacritical marks, I can't get my head around it. 🤪 I understood it differently, or I remembered them incorrectly. 🤷🏽♂️ Or! I've been pronouncing a lot of words wrongly! 🤦🏽♂️
However, when I use Hangeul and Kana, I don't have to worry about diacritical marks. Both scripts have stable pronunciations, not like Latin characters where we have to use diacritical marks.
The only catch, the reader should be able to read Hangeul or Kana scripts, which most don't. 🤔 So, back to trying to get a grasp of Filipino diacritical marks. 🤯
Am I right that the Filipino diacritical marks represent the sound?
Examples:
e = neutral = abrupt soft stop?
è = high to low = abrupt hard stop? (paiwa?)
é = low to high = malumay? (malumanay?)
ê = low to high to low = ??
ë = the new Filipino schwa (no idea, since I don't speak the few Philippine languages where a Filipino schwa is needed).
Any experts out there?
(In the revived diacritical marks, we no longer use ē. IIRC, it used to represent a long vowel sound.)
@youronlyone So, in other words, they made it so even old computers who can do #ISO-8859-1 / #Windows-1252 but not #Unicode can still type such words with diacritics via Alt+NumKey combinations. But ē only exists in Unicode (maybe it first showed up on #Windows-1257 but that was only used by Baltic languages), so it can't be typed via Alt+NumKey codes (& not everyone knows that CharMap is a thing). @pilipinas@philippines@pinoy
Instant food (especially those with very long expiry dates; yes, not healthy, but…)
Drinking water.
Traditional radios. (Preferably ones that can be recharged so you can reserve your batteries for other purposes.)
Two-way radios (a.k.a. walkie-talkie).
Backpacks, belt bags.
Maps and compass. Do you also know how to read maps and use a compass?
Escape routes.
Do you know which places were marked for emergencies?
Some of the people I know also have generators, gas, and bunkers already. Yes, bunkers in the Philippines (oh, and guns, really).
Don't rely on electronic gadgets. The first things to go fast are electricity supply and communication network.
Remember there are 3 major fault lines in Luzon.
East Valley Fault System
West Valley Fault System (100+ km long; from Angat Dam to Luzon-Batangas boundary)
Manila Trench. On the West Philippine Sea, running from Northern Luzon to near Mindoro Island.
We haven't even considered the 1,200-km Philippine Fault System (which itself is major too, but we rarely hear about it). It runs from Northern Luzon to Southern Mindanao.
Then the currently unstable and volatile China issue, which, as I've talked about previously, can easily turn into a major regional or world war.
See #Makati in the attached map in the post above? That's where we live, and work.
According to the #PHIVOLCS FaultFinder app, we are only 5.2 km away (straight line) from the nearest West Valley Fault System.
I can easily run 5 km between 50 and 60 min (in 2020, I can do 5 for 35 to 40 min)). That's how close we are. (And it is my major reason why I avoid working in Taguig and Pasig, again.)
Not to mention, the type of soil underneath our cities, and liquefaction, also matter big time. (It affects the “intensity” of an earthquake, which is different from “magnitude”.)
We can't just leave. Where else should we go? Forget about the other natural disasters, earthquakes have recently occurred in places initially thought of should not have any; or at least have no recorded earthquake or oral history. It can happen anywhere.
From 2010 to 2017, there was a thing called #AseanCitizen that we Aseans started as a grassroots movement. We were all bloggers from across, well, #ASEAN or South-East Asia.
Some of us joined together to produce one of the best multi-authored regional blogs. We talked about our cultures, write about what makes the region awesome. As well as, try to address the oftentimes silly and sometimes heated debates.
It's all gone now. Forgotten. The blogs dead or offline. We all grew up, got busy with our personal lives, and moved on separately. And the important reason? We lost interest in it as we started to see ASEAN was, is, and will never be for the grassroots.
That was the end of what was once a vibrant grassroot ASEAN Citizens effort. We did it all voluntarily. Without a single recognition from the top-down organisation that is ASEAN.
But today? ASEAN is still a top-down organisation. They kept trying to get the grassroots involved, but they are always failing. Why? Because it is a top-down organisation, as simple as that. They will never understand until they shift their mindset and approach to bottom-up.
(P.S I want to restart this grassroots movement, but I just no longer have the spark. Give me a very good reason why I should give it another chance. Or, at least, guide the new generation.)
@youronlyone@asean@pilipinas@philippines@pinoy In my worldview SEA countries are severly underrepresented online. As a european, the only connection to the region I have is food. I`d love to learn more.